2. The notion of cure in the Brazilian ayahuasca religions Rafael.pdf · Cure in the Brazilian ayahuasca religions 25 of organized, urban, non-indigenous, religions based on its consumption,

T Transworld Research Network 37/661 (2), Fort P.O. Trivandrum-695 023 Kerala, India

The Ethnopharmacology of Ayahuasca, 2011: 23-53 ISBN: 978-81-7895-526-1 Editor: Rafael Guimarães dos Santos

2. The notion of cure in the Brazilian ayahuasca religions

Sandra Lucia Goulart

Assistant Professor at Cásper Líbero College, São Paulo, Brazil and researcher in NEIP (Psychoactives Interdisciplinary Study Group), São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract. This article discusses concepts and practices of healing in Brazilian religions which have in common the use of a psychoactive beverage mainly known by the names of Daime, Vegetal and Ayahuasca. These religions are elaborated from the same set of cultural traditions which nonetheless unfolds in different ways. All of them originate in the Brazilian Amazon region and in some cases, these processes expand to other parts of Brazil and abroad. We compare here the ways in which the healing is experienced and explained in these religions, emphasizing the representations concerning this beverage used in all of them. The case of these religions points to the complexity of the relation between both scientific and religious medicines.

1. Introduction In this article we intend to develop an analysis of the therapeutic concepts present in some religious cults emerged in the Brazilian Amazon region Correspondence/Reprint request: Dr. Sandra Lucia Goulart, Assistant Professor at Cásper Líbero College, São Paulo, Brazil and researcher in NEIP (Psychoactives Interdisciplinary Study Group), São Paulo, Brazil E-mail: [email protected]

Sandra Lucia Goulart 24

starting from 1930. All these cults have in common the use of the same psychoactive beverage, made by brewing a combination of two plants, a liana whose scientific name is Banisteriopsis caapi and the leaves of a bush, Psychotria viridis1. In all of them this beverage also receives different designations. Thus, in some of them the beverage is named Daime, in others as Vegetal. The main habitat of the Banisteriopsis caapi is the East of the Andes, Peru, Bolivia, the whole Northwest of the Amazon, the Colombian and Brazilian Amazon, Ecuador and Venezuela. Outside the context of these Brazilian religions, the term ayahuasca is one of the most known and used for such psychoactive beverage. The term is quite widespread in Peru and comes from Quechua. Aya means persona, soul, “espíritu muerto”, and Wasca means rope, “enredadera”, “parra”, “liana”. The name is used to designate both the beverage and one of the plants composing it: the liana Banisteriopsis caapi[1]. Therefore ayahuasca can be literally translated to Portuguese, as “the rope of the spirits” or “the rope of the dead” and also as “the liana of the spirits or the dead”. Nowadays, the term “ayahuasca religions” is also used by many scholars to refer to cults which have arisen in Brazil. Within the indigenous context, the beverage is mainly consumed in the Pano linguistic trunk groups (Eastern Peru / South Acre), Arawak (Peru), and Tukano (Colombia), receiving different names in these different contexts. Nowadays, throughout the Amazon, there are about seventy indigenous groups making use of this beverage. The contexts of these practices vary considerably. Although there are extensive and ancient indigenous and mestizo traditions in the use of this beverage, the emergence

1The liana Banisteriopsis caapi contains three beta-carboline alkaloids: harmaline, harmine and tetrahydroharmine. The plant species Psychotria viridis, a bush, has as its active ingredient another alkaloid, DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine), substance considered as the main responsible for the visionary effect or the hallucinogenic aspect of this beverage. However, it is known that DMT has no effect when ingested orally, as it is deactivated by an enzyme present in the human digestive tract, the MAO (monoamine oxidase). Hence, precisely, the importance of the alkaloids present in the liana, which has the function to temporarily disable the MAO, allowing the DMT to activate the central nervous system, thus producing its visionary effects. It is also important to remember that since 1971, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, signed in Vienna has included the DMT on its top list of forbidden drugs, considered highly dangerous. The ban involves many intricate and controversial discussions[2]. Just to mention some issues, it is worth noting that in addition to Psychotria viridis, several other species also have certain amounts of DMT, such as some kinds of fungi, fish and mammals, including man himself, but suffer no prohibition.

Cure in the Brazilian ayahuasca religions 25

of organized, urban, non-indigenous, religions based on its consumption, is an exclusive phenomenon of the Brazilian region. 2. Mestre Irineu’s daime Historically, the first of these religions was organized by Raimundo Irineu Serra in the city of Rio Branco, capital of Acre state, in 1930. He, who would later become known as Mestre Irineu was native from the state of Maranhão, Northeast of Brazil. As most Northeastern people, he migrated to the Amazon region, still early in the first decade of the twentieth century, to work with the extraction of rubber. It is during the period in which he works as a rubber tapper, in a border region between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru that Mestre Irineu gets in contact with a whole culture of the use of this beverage which would be central in the new religious cult founded by him. Between 1915 and 1918, more specifically in Brasiléia, Mestre Irineu would have not only his first experiences with ayahuasca, but also begin to develop the principles of worship that would later become known by the names of Alto Santo, Daime or Santo Daime2. That is when the use of the beverage provides him a set of mystical experiences, which feature the vision of a female entity that gives him the doctrinal basis of the new cult based on the use of the beverage, now called Daime. This entity who would later be identified by Mestre Irineu as the Virgin Mary, from the Catholic tradition, would have clarified that the real name of that beverage was “Daime”, whose meaning comes from a request or invocation made by those who consume the beverage to the spiritual being who reigns it. Thus, the believers would ask: “Give me light”, “Give Me Love”, “Give me wisdom”, “Give me health” etc. This explanation of the name Daime, already points to the importance that the psychoactive beverage takes in the definition of the religious experience of this cult believers. It indicates that the Daime is assigned a crucial role in obtaining mystical, doctrinaire teachings or healing revelations - spiritual or

2Only in 1970, shortly before his death that Mestre Irineu had his group notarized as a religious institution, under the name of CICLU (Centro da Iluminação Cristã Luz Universal – Christian Enlightening Center Universal Light). Previously, in 1945, Mestre Irineu received a property donation, the Custódio Freire colony, located in the rural suburbs of Rio Branco. He shared this land among his followers and built his church at this site. The location, the church and, in some situations, the cult itself, became known as Alto Santo. However, over time and even with the emergence of new groups in this religious tradition, the group originally founded by Mestre Irineu is also identified in some situations as “Daime” or “Santo Daime”. In this article this term will be frequently used in order to refer to the religion created by Mestre Irineu.


material. During this period, in Brasiléia, Mestre Ireneu organized along with two fellows from Maranhão: André and Antonio Costa, the Centro de Regeneração e Fé (Center for Regeneration and Faith), which had as its main point of practices the consumption of ayahuasca. Nevertheless, the daimist cult only begins to be effectively organized in 1930, when Mestre Ireneu already lives in Rio Branco. At that time, he was established in the district of Vila Ivonete, rural area of the Acre capital which, in that period, housed rubber plants and small agricultural colonies, whose tenants were mostly former rubber tappers. Mestre Irineu, as well as several of the first members of his cult, had, by then, small colonies. As shown in other studies[3-5], to a certain extent, the religious group founded by Mestre Irineu, in Rio Branco, expressed both the material reorganization of former rubber tappers that, in a new environment, began to engage in the agriculture activity, as the rescue of a group of ancient regional cultural elements, which were resignified according to this context. At this time, issues related to health, disease and healing problems, gained prominence. Accordingly, the cult founded by Mestre Irineu appears, initially as a healing cult. In the early years that marked the organization of his religious group in Rio Branco, Mestre Irineu performed especially “healing works” with the Daime. It was through this kind of practice that he and his new cult were gradually becoming known, gathering followers in the region. Many of those who sought the guidance of Mestre Irineu, at that time, brought up requests related to health problems and, in most cases, those were typical of diseases from the region and from a social layer of low income, with little access to the official medicine. Thereby, the first believers of the group founded by Mestre Irineu were converted, especially as they felt their misfortunes and ailments were cured or solved. This was the case of Antonio Ribeiro (and part of his family), one of the earliest supporters of the cult of Mestre Irineu. In an interview with me, his daughter, Percília Ribeiro, reported that her father sought Mestre Irineu in 1934 because he suffered from malaria, and could not have it cured through the conventional medical treatments. In her words:

“There was no medicine to cure that (...) Dad went only from home to the hospital, just taking drugs... And none of them made him better (...) Then he went to meet Mestre (...) It was when he took the Daime. Soon he was cured (...)”

This kind of statement is often repeated among many of those who became disciples of Mestre Irineu in those early days. For them, Mestre Irineu’s guidance, using the Daime, was usually preferred and more valued


when compared to a medicine considered poor, inefficient or even absent, revealing the lack of access of a certain population to medical services. Often, even when such access was possible, the narratives point to the existence of a distance between the doctors’ speech and the universe of the patient, which ended up hindering the cure. In some statements, the interviewees stated similarly to the testimonial above that doctors would not “understand” or “figure out” what were the illnesses which afflicted him, therefore not being able to “find” the proper medicine needed to cure them. Also accordingly, the Daime would appear, for these believers, both as a remedy and a kind of oracle, through which one could have the “revelation” of the required treatment for a particular case. The so “revealed” and prescribed remedies could be from teas or herbal compresses to even allopathic pills and tablets. In the same statement quoted above, Mrs. Percília Ribeiro tells that, besides her father, she herself was cured with the use of Daime through Mestre Irineu’s guidelines. In her case however the cure came with the “revelation” of the “right medicine”, obtained by Mestre Irineu through the use of the Daime. So she tells us:

“One day Mestre Irineu told dad: 'look, this one here is her medication. She’ll take a box and she’ll be better'. And I took all those pills, the whole box, as Mestre Irineu said, and I finally got better. It was like that ... sometimes the medicine was the Daime, when not Mestre would see one’s remedy. He would get one’s remedy through the Daime (...) It was like that, and who was with Mestre did not need another doctor (...)”

The term “miração” seems to come from the Spanish verb “mirar” which can be translated into English as “see” or “look”. In the border regions of Brazil with Spanish-speaking countries such as Peru and Bolivia, the use of words in two languages is usual, in this case Portuguese and Spanish. As seen, the religious cult founded by Mestre Irineu is in its origin, related to the cultural context of a border region among Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, and so, perhaps, some expressions and categories of this religious universe refer to the Spanish language. “Miração” is a daimist fundamental category, which refers to the effects of the Daime, especially the visual ones, meaning the pinnacle of the beverage effects, marking a crucial moment of contact between the believer and the sacred world. The idea of “see” the right remedy for a particular disease “through the Daime”, seems close to a set of concepts sustaining the oldest uses of ayahuasca, which preceded the formation of Mestre Irineu's cult. This is the case of traditions that were largely formed from the upper Amazon


watershed as a result of the contact among the indigenous Christianized groups, riverside mestizo populations and mainly rubber tappers, who began to occupy the region from the mid-nineteenth century. According to Luis Eduardo Luna[1] it was exactly this cultural exchange among these different groups that allowed the emergence of a new set of practices around the use of the ayahuasca beverage. These new practices, developed in a different context from the tribes or villages of the indigenous groups, and started emphasizing the use of the ayahuasca for therapeutic purposes. Mainly for the tappers who started to live in a new and hostile environment, in poor survival conditions, the ayahuasca started to be configured as a remedy for all kinds of ailments[1]. Thus, the new occupant groups of the Amazon region resignified the uses of this beverage, originally drank by the indigenous peoples. Studies such as Luna’s suggest that actually, the consumption of the ayahuasca in this new context, deeply influenced by a mestizo rubber tapping culture, becomes relevant when compared to its ancient indigenous use. Also accordingly, Luna says his informers from the Peruvian region often used to say that the “caucheiros” discovered the ayahuasca[1]. Yet, Nunes Pereira[6] called the ayahuasca as “yerba del cauchero” (cauchero’s herb). Luna[1] studied the shamanic healers from the Peruvian jungle, mainly from Iquitos and Pucallpa, locally called as “vegetalists”. The “vegetalists” are so called because it is sustained that all their knowledge comes from the spirits of certain plants, which would be the real teachers of these healing agents. For this reason, these plants are called “doctors” or “master plants”. From all of these, the ayahuasca is the most used and most relevant one. There are many differences between the Peruvian ayahuasca vegetalism and the Daime cult founded by Mestre Irineu, however at the same time, there are common points between them. As argued before[3-5] the cult founded by Mestre Irineu in the thirties in Rio Branco resulted in an ambiguous process where some aspects of this vegetalist tradition were abandoned or denied, while others were rescued and reinterpreted. The idea of a symbiosis between man and vegetable species, expressed in the vegetalist concept that all aspiring shamans should ritually turn into a “spirit plant”[1] and the very notion of “teaching plans”, were essential elements in the constitution of the new religion created by Mestre Irineu. In the daimist cult the idea that the Daime is a plant that teaches, therefore “teacher” par excellence, is reiterated in the hymns which organize most of the rituals, the exegeses of the believers, their experiences drinking it, and in the myths about the initiation of Mestre Irineu with the ayahuasca. The concept, equally fundamental in this religious universe, of the Daime as a crucial agent in the treatment processes as well as of the cure of several


illnesses is associated with this idea of the Daime as a “plant that teaches”. Accordingly, the Daime is a vegetable animated being that teaches and can therefore reveal the presence of a disease, sometimes even unknown, in the body of the one who ingests it. It can help the healing, working as a drug to treat a specific disease, also having an oracle role when it points, in some cases, to the need for administration of other drugs. However, it is important to highlight that the elements of the traditions of the Peruvian ayahuasca vegetalismo are resignified in the daimist cult, now appearing associated with conceptions and practices of another cultural and religious complex. Besides the ayahuasca vegetalism, a whole set of elements of the so called popular Brazilian Catholicism was triggered for the formation of the new religion founded by Mestre Irineu in Rio Branco, as highlighted in other studies[3,5]. Based on the analysis made by different authors[7,8], it is possible to identify in the organization of the Daime rituals, many aspects of the tradition of popular Catholicism saint festivals, strongly disseminated throughout the ancient rural Brazil. Ancient forms of worship, such as celebrating a saint’s day with dance and a feast of typical regional food were being associated with the use of the Daime. Therefore the “work of hymnals” originates, which consisted in the gathering of the believers to sing and dance hymnals in a set of specific dates, generally following the Christian calendar, especially dates that celebrate some saints. As mentioned, when Mestre Irineu begins to organize his cult in Rio Branco, his ceremonies consisted primarily in healing “works” or “sessions” with the Daime. The structure of these “works” involved a few elements, the main one being the consumption of the Daime itself done either by the patient as by other participants. Gradually, however, the ritual structure of this religion becomes more complex. Mestre Irineu starts summarizing his experiences with the Daime in hymns, songs that are understood by these followers as a result of the connection with the spiritual world. Over time, several of the early followers of the cult founded by Mestre Irineu will also express their experiences with the Daime in the same fashion “receiving” their own hymns. This first group of daimists, led by Mestre Irineu, gradually organizes the whole ritual of this religion. Meetings were made to “take” the Daime and sing with fervor the hymns received by Mestre Irineu and some of his followers. The tradition of festivals for Christian saints was followed with enthusiasm by both Mestre Irineu and many of these early believers of the daimist cult. So, gradually, some dates that celebrated Christian saints were selected for the times when taking Daime and singing hymns were wanted. Thereby, a Daime ritual calendar was being made and over time, the work of hymnals with their specific dances was being elaborated.


The meaning of the work with hymnals differs from the healing work with the Daime, which marks the original mode of the daimist cult. While these were made for specific cases, individual diseases, the work of hymnals were made for the community of believers. They mark the meeting of the whole brotherhood, affirm and strengthen the teaching, the doctrine and morality principles of this religion as well as its mythology and finally of all those elements that are emphasized in the hymns sung during such ceremonies. Accordingly, giving visibility to the daimist community itself as well as to the main foundations of this religion, which are not only expressed but, above all, experienced and internalized by the believers who participate in these works. However, this more collective character of the work of hymnals does not stop them from being also related to therapeutic and healing processes. Moreover, in a fashion, the very experience of internalizing and living the doctrinal principles enables these ceremonies, facilitating the emergence of such processes. These principles gain at this time a more personal sense, being interpreted by each believer according to their personal stories and experiences. For this reason, there are frequent reports in which the person, during the hymnal work, taking the Daime, finds out that he or she is sick, seeing in the “miração”, which is his or her illness and in which body part it is located. Similarly, the stories describing healings during hymnals are constant. There are several statements where people say that, during the “miração” at the hymnal work they were operated by spiritual beings and thus, cured. In order to illustrate that, follows below a piece of an interview I did with a lady who joined the Mestre Irineu’s religious group in Rio Branco in the 1960s. A native from Rio Branco, said that she decided to convert herself after she got the cure for both stomach and liver diseases that afflicted her at that time.

“I had a dream about Mestre Irineu’s church. Only I did not know where the Mestre’s church was (...) I told my husband I knew where this place from the dream was. He was the one who took me there (...) I got there, I was kind of scared because I did not know (...) Then Mestre gave me only a little Daime. I thought nothing would happen (...) After a while it started (...) The miração came (…) that was when I got operated (...) I found myself in a hospital, on an operating table. It was all clean, very light. Two doctors arrived, accompanied by some nurses, with all the equipment to operate. Then a lady came (...), a very enlightened being, she smoked all over me. She did this smoking and handed me to those spiritual beings, that operated on me (...) I received this treatment though the Daime…from inside the Daime... And I’m here today (...)”


These “spiritual” or “astral operations” testimonials are common among the daimists. Something that can be noticed in this sort of statement is the presence of metaphors relating to the official medicine and its officials such as doctors or nurses as well as references to their work tools and acting facilities, e.g. hospitals. Here is observed an ambiguity in these believers’ statements. On the one hand, there is a distrust regarding the official medicine and its officials, as well as a misunderstanding of its logic, on the other hand, there is a recurrence of the official medicine universe elements in the construction of exegeses on therapeutic processes, and of obtaining healing, experienced by those believers. In this aspect we can make some analogies between the daimist cult and other religious cults developed in Brazil. Firstly, many authors have pointed to the importance of either healing or its quest aspects, as for the presence of the imaginary related to the scientific or official medicine in the experience of the believers of the religions practiced in Brazil. Regarding the so-called African-Brazilian cults, such as Umbanda and Candomblé3, different scholars have observed that the desire for a cure or relief for a number of afflictions, also understood as organic, is a major cause of accession to these cults. That is the finding of Paula Montero[11] in a study about diseases and magic-religious therapeutic practices in the umbandist universe in São Paulo. According to Montero[11], 45% of the interviewees claim to have become umbandists “because of an illness”. José Guilherme Magnani[12], in a research on the treatment of mental illnesses in Umbanda, made in terreiros4 from São Paulo, also makes a similar statement. For him, most people who

3Umbanda and Candomblé are religions formed in Brazil from the intercrossing of different elements from various traditions. Umbanda has been organized initially in the Southeast of Brazil, in cities as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, according to some researchers since the 1920’s[9]. Umbanda is composed of elements from African religions, as well as practices from Brazilian indigenous traditions, popular Catholicism and the Spiritism developed by Alan Kardec conceptions. Yet the Candomblé started to spread at the end of slavery in 1888, particularly in the Brazil Northeast. In the Candomblé originally from Iorubá (Nago) which initially spread in Brazil, the Orishas - intermediaries between the supreme God (OLORUN) and men who represent the forces of nature - are not worshiped. Currently, both the Candomblé and the Umbanda are found all over Brazil, although some types of Candomblé are yet stronger in the Northeast[10]. 4Terreiro means the place where all ritual cult activities are performed, the house, with its yard and all the buildings. The term is used in different African-Brazilian cults. Often with a similar sense, the terms “house” or “center” [10] can also be used.


turn not only to Umbanda terreiros, but also to Candomblé houses and spiritist centers5 do it for the healing of illnesses of the body or the soul[12]. At the same time, some of these authors also detect in the speech of African-Brazilian cult followers, especially of Umbanda, the same ambiguity we found in the case of the daimist cult in the matter of official medicine. The African-Brazilian cult followers would express simultaneously a dissatisfaction regarding the official medicine performance, including a skepticism regarding their therapeutic results and conversely, the frequent use of aspects specific to this medicine. In the same study mentioned earlier, Paula Montero[11] tries to show how this process takes place, concluding that the scientific medical speech and practice work either as a counterpoint or as a model for Umbanda healing activities. Accordingly, for example, fathers or mothers of a saint6 refer to themselves as “doctors” - either from the soul or spirit - and the terreiro is often seen or called as an “emergence room”, the apparel used by the followers is generally white, reminding to some extent, the also white uniforms, of the official medical professionals. Besides that, Montero and many others have often recorded the presence of “spiritual operations” - similar to those described by the daimists - in the healing statements from the umbandists. For Montero the ambiguous relationship that Umbanda keeps with the world of official medicine is explained by the fact that the magic-therapeutic practices applied by the first must necessarily take into account the dominant position of the second. In other words, while official medicine, official precisely for being dominant and hegemonic, is self-referential, the popular medicines, such as those of Umbanda, are subordinate. So they build their exercise through a constant reference to the official medicine model. 5Spiritist center here refers to the Kardecist religion. This was organized by Hippolyte Rivail, a French pedagogue who adopted the pseudonym of Allan Kardec. From the mid-nineteenth century, Kardec starts to structure his doctrine which he classified as, religion, philosophy and science simultaneously; it is denominated spiritism due to the belief in the intervention of spirits of the dead driving some phenomena in the world of the living. Kardec’s Spiritism included a series of esoteric and spiritual beliefs that circulated in Europe and the United States especially since the late eighteenth century, as the theories of magnetism or the psyche. In Brazil, Kardec’s doctrine, also known as Allan Kardec, diffuses from the late nineteenth century, primarily among urban upper and middle layers, and then widely spread in different regions of the country and among several sectors of the population. 6The two designations are used to refer to spiritual leaders of African-Brazilian cults, either in Umbanda or Candomblé.


It is necessary to record that not only African-Brazilian cults, but several religions developed in Brazil would be deeply linked to the demand for the cure of diseases. Through different perspectives, studies which approach the consolidation and growth of the kardecism in Brazil hold in this matter. We can already see it in the classic study of Candido Procópio[13], on mediumistic religions7 in Brazil. For this author, there would be in the Brazilian society, a mediunic continuum, ranging from the African forms of worship (such as Umbanda) to those more Westernized and white (such as the orthodox spiritualism), being the different types of therapies for major diseases, elements in the limiting points of this continuum. Other authors highlight that the peculiarities of the kardecism in Brazil is a more remarkably therapeutic feature. Liana Trindade[15], for example, examines how, in the early expansion of kardecism in Brazil, kardecist notions and ideas, such as the “magnetic fluid”, adapt and blend to the old magic-therapeutic beliefs from the lower layers of society, as the belief in the healing power of the spirits of the dead or their ancestors. Likewise, in the tradition of the popular Catholicism, especially in the worshiping practiced to the saints, the demands related to diseases and the search of their healing are emphasized, as other authors have already demonstrated[8,16]. Even religions that have grown more recently in Brazil, as the new protestant sects, the so-called Pentecostal services, also maintains this therapeutic aspect, since good part of its expansion is given in function of demands for the cure of illnesses and varied misfortunes. It has even made some scholars classify some religious cults such as the Brazilian Umbanda, Candomblé, Kardecism and Pentecostalism as “cults of affliction”[17,18]. Accordingly, the cult founded by Mestre Irineu continues one of the main forms of expression of the popular religiosity in Brazil which, as previously seen, is strongly linked to the issue of healing. Similarly, as a manifestation of popular medicines or therapies, comes also in a tense and ambiguous relationship with the scientific, hegemonic medicine. Here it is important to clarify that in both ayahuasca cults as in other religions, the constant reference to elements and notions of the official medicine universe does not

7The mediumistic religions are founded on the notion of “mediunity”, which is understood as a gift which can express itself in different ways, through hearing, vision, dreams, intuition of the presence of spirits and souls of the dead, or even through incorporation of them in certain believers who are called mediums. These notions come from the Kardecism, however they were widely adopted in the Umbanda environment. In the kardecism, the typical mode of manifestation of the spirits of the dead is given through the word[10,14].


mean a simple incorporation or reproduction of the biomedical logic. Instead, when it regards for example, the African-Brazilian cults, many authors state that when aspects of the conventional medicine are used by their believers they start having completely different meanings. Thus, Montero[11], despite viewing an inevitable subordination in the therapeutic umbandist practices, also contends that the Umbanda religious medicine acts in the gaps, the interstices of the official medicine, to surreptitiously deny and overcome this inferiority. The umbandist distinction between “material diseases” and “spiritual diseases” would express this simultaneous movement of affirmation and denial of the official medical practices domain. The material illnesses would be related to the official medicine performance, while the spiritual diseases would be from the religious sphere. From this perspective a complementarity among official medical practices and religious therapeutic practices is established. However, the assertion of this complementarity ends up culminating in a second stage, into the idea of superiority of the religious therapy. Montero shows that in the umbandist speech invariably, the official medicine is seen as capable of treating only the consequences of the diseases, while the religious sphere should have the role of treating their true causes. Actually, this brings us to another aspect of the religious therapeutic practices. As also shown by several studies, these practices tend to have a broader purpose other than just treating an organic problem. It is exactly because they have religious foundations, their answers and solutions are linked to broader ordinations, i.e. to cosmological explanations. The religious therapies offer an integrating principle[12], which enables the unfortunates to relate their woes to a larger context, and thus start providing them sense and coherence. The case of the daimist cult is no exception. Commonly these believers understand that their diseases are somehow related to other problems - not necessarily organic - which afflict them. They are seen therefore as signals, indications of the need for a personal transformation which implies in a change of behavior that concerns the subject’s life as a whole. Accordingly, in a general way, every healing process in the context of the daimist cult, involves a moral transformation of the patient. It is also in this manner that diseases are often viewed as a necessary suffering or, as the daimists say, “probations” which they must go through in order to transform spiritually. In another excerpt of the same statement quoted earlier, of the daimist who reports being operated spiritually “through the Daime”, we find an example of this kind of logic.

“The Daime cured me (...) The Daime showed me everything that was wrong in my life ... Because there was so much wrong ... with my family, my children, with my husband, not only with me, you know ... That


disease was like a burden, an ordeal, a suffering that I had to go through to reach the Daime and leave that life I used to lead (...) After that I decided to follow this doctrine and everything has improved in my life. It was like the being who manifested to me and said at the end of my operation, ‘here is your place. In this house, with these teachings, you’ll be forever cured’”.

Here, the manifestation of the disease is intrinsically linked to the process of conversion and transformation that it entails. Although the interviewee reported earlier her disease was an organic state, i.e. that it was expressed through an imbalance of some of the organs of her body (stomach, liver), in a second part of the statement the disease is linked to broader situations of her life and her “cure” is thereby the starting point for her conversion to the daimist cult. At this point we can identify some changes in the conceptions about illnesses, healing and the role of the Daime in the therapeutic processes, in the cult founded by Mestre Irineu, regarding the ancient traditions of the ayahuasca use, as for example, the Peruvian vegetalism. The latter was based on an extensive knowledge of the natural environment in its thorough classification according to a hierarchy that associated and separated the different vegetable species. Thus, the cure also implied into the respect to the classification of the vegetable species, by making specific dietary requirements during the process where the patient was submitted to a treatment with the vegetalist and the ayahuasca. Furthermore, more generally, the use of the ayahuasca, within this Peruvian context, has the meaning of a physical “cleaning”. Ayahuasca is even called by many as “la purge”, emphasizing here its purpose is to detoxify the body. In the specific case of the curator, i.e. the vegetalist, his initiation involved the implementation of a longer and more strict diet, which included a series of food prohibitions (including alcoholic abstinence), in addition to sexual abstinence and the constant ingestion of the ayahuasca itself as well as other psychoactive plants. In the case of the daimist cult, there is also the requirement to hold a diet for those who consume the Daime. This diet was one of the first ritual precepts established by Mestre Irineu in the formation of his new cult in Rio Branco. However, the diet set by the Mestre Irineu refers only to the alcoholic and sex abstinence, three days before and after you drink the Daime. It does not imply, as in the Peruvian vegetalism, in more classifications of nature and plant species which led, in this case, to a number of other dietary requirements. It is true that the initiation of Mestre Irineu with the ayahuasca would have required a much longer and more restrictive diet regarding food consumption. Testimonials of his initiation which occurred yet in the region of Brasiléia, say


that the Mestre Irineu was isolated inside the forest for several days, consuming in this period, only saltless manioc and the ayahuasca itself. Throughout his isolation in the forest, it is told that Mestre Irineu acquired the power to communicate with plants and animals. It was this diet and isolation in the forest that led to the revelation of the foundations of the Daime doctrine, made by a female entity to Mestre Irineu. In the Daime cult however, only the requirements related to alcohol and sex were kept. Moreover, they now gain a new meaning. Instead of being linked to other dietary rules, resulted from a whole magic classification of nature, these prohibitions refer to other morality. They are seen as a “cleaning”, in a more general character. It is not just about detoxifying the body, but rather “cleaning the impurities of the matter” so that the spirit can reach the “astral”. “Matter”, “spirit” and “astral” are fundamental categories of the daimist cosmology. “Matter” and “spirit” makes up a duality that guides and means the believers’ life and his behavior in this religion. The “matter” encompasses not only the physical body, but the whole sphere of “material earth life” associated in the daimist perspective to a “world of illusions”. The “spirit” opposes to the matter, pure and free from the “illusions” of the earthly life. The spirit relates to the “astral” world, a higher plan in which the spirit beings and deities live. Consuming the Daime is seen as a means of approaching the “astral world”. For this, one must move away from the “matter affection” and the “world of illusions”, which includes “addictions” and “bad habits” as daimists and several of its hymns lyrics often say. Sex, alcohol use, and attitudes that indicate greed, vanity, pride, are classified as “bad habits” which bind us to the matter preventing the spirit from reaching the “astral”. Accordingly, both the diet related to the use of Daime as the conceptions about diseases and their cures, in the daimist cult, are related to a more ascetic morality, in which aspects seen as mundane or secular are devalued and classified as inferior, impure or still sinful. The presence of some elements of this morality in turn, binds the daimist cult to broader processes that affected and transformed all the Brazilian old popular religious culture, from the 1930s. Indeed, several scholars of the subject show that, during this period, a new religious ethic emerges - in both urban and rural areas. This new ethic is expressed in different ways, either through the transformation of ancient religiosity as also through the emergence of new religions. Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz[19], for example, tried to show how from that moment a more ascetic moral came to dominate the popular Catholic practices that were once deeply marked by the sacralization of the festive aspects. Regarding in particular the Amazonian context, some authors, such as Galvão[7], highlight the transformation of traditional religious forms, such


as the beliefs in the Amazonian shamanism (pajelança amazônica)8 that started to merge with Catholic practices or elements of the Kardecism which began to spread at this time precisely. Also in the Peruvian region, we may record a set of similar transformations in the practices of the ayahuasca vegetalism. Thus, Luna[1] states that from the early twentieth century, a new generation of vegetalists who incorporate a considerable amount of Christian elements in their ayahuasca sessions (such as prayers and summons to the Virgin Mary and Jesus) will be spread. However, in spite of these changes, the religion of Santo Daime also expresses many continuities in relation to earlier traditions of the ayahuasca use, as the Peruvian vegetalism. Despite the distinctions between the meaning of the daimista diet and the sense of the vegetal diet, the cult created by Mestre Irineu is based on the use of a “spirit plant”. As mentioned before, the Daime, this “divine being”, is understood as a plant that teaches and can heal or disclose the proper remedies for certain diseases. It remains, therefore, the idea of “conductor plant” in the vegetalist context. The use of the Daime is not linked to thorough classifications of the natural environment and different vegetable species (as in the vegetalism), but ultimately, the whole daimist experience with the beverage implies in a process of properties absorption of the latter by those who consume it. Thus, the Daime - the vegetable beverage - has “strength”, “power”, “light”, “knowledge”, as emphasized, moreover, in the hymns of that religion. By drinking the Daime during a “work”, the believer aims precisely at achieving many of these properties of the beverage: “strength”, “power”, “light” or “knowledge”. Simultaneously, the idea of “transforming in the Daime” leads the religious experience of the believer in this religion. As attempted to demonstrate earlier[3,5], the transformation in the Daime beverage is a theme emphasized in the mythical statements surrounding the initiation of Mestre Irineu with the ayahuasca. A common notion to this religious world is that “Mestre Irineu” is the Daime itself. This theme is reiterated in the personal experiences of each believer with the beverage. Testimonials of the “miração” for example, are common in which

8 It is called Amazonian shamanism a set of practices and conceptions of the cabocla population, which in Brazil express the results of the contact between the indigenous peoples and other groups that occupied the Amazon. Cabocla populations have here a more cultural sense. The Amazonian shamanism encompasses beliefs in spiritual beings (the “enchanted ones”) that inhabit natural places such as rivers, forests etc., as well as a whole concept of reciprocal relationships between men and natural environment[7].


those who drink the Daime, claim to have become the liana (i.e. in Banisteriopsis caapi) or being transported to jagube and rainha plantations9. There are other relations between Mestre Irineu’s Santo Daime cult and the practices of the Peruvian ayahuasca vegetalism. So the great importance that the music in the form of hymns, has in structuring the Daime ritual has its parallel in the vegetalist context. The vegetalist healers, as shown by Luna[1], organized their ayahuasca sessions through songs, called “icaros”. These are magic musical melodies transmitted to the vegetalist through the master plants themselves. Just as the icaros, the Daime hymns during the rituals guide the experiences of the believers with the Daime, as well as the sensations caused by its use, especially those expressed through visions. In general, also in the Santo Daime context, a close relationship between the process of transmission and the use of Daime hymns is established. The main characteristic of the icaros is its healing power. The meaning of the term itself already points to the healing function of these melodies. Icarus, from the Quichua “ikaray”, means “blow smoke to heal”[1]. Likewise, the daimist hymns are closely related to the healing processes experienced in this religion scope. First because they are key elements in the structure and meaning of the experiences of the believers with the Daime, allowing the internalization of the doctrinaire principles of the religion in ritual moments. Second, because there are specific healing hymns, sung by the community of believers in specific ceremonies. Of course, as seen, the concepts of disease and cure acquire new meanings in the daimist context. However, there is equally a continuity regarding the vegetalist beliefs about the appearance of illnesses or misfortunes. Thus, as the latter, especially in older daimist statements, the record of stories about illnesses caused by the action of others through acts such as the introduction of magic - through spell - of strange objects or animals - mostly insects - in the patient's body is common. In fact, what is important to emphasize here is that the Santo Daime religion organized by Mestre Irineu in 1930’s in Rio Branco, relates to a broader context of Amazonian traditions, which also embraces the use of ayahuasca. The conceptions related to diseases and therapeutic processes, expressed in the cult created by Mestre Irineu, establish a direct link with a shamanic ayahuasca healing. This, according to Peter Gow[20], from about three hundred years, began to be outlined in some Amazon regions most affected by the transformations generated by the colonial contact and the rubber exploitation international economy. This new shamanism would be more emphatically focused on the 9Jagube and Rainha are designations created by these believers when referring to the Banisteriopsis caapi liana plantations and the leaves of Psychotria viridis respectively.


purpose of healing and the ayahuasca would take a central role in it, being conceived now, above all, as a therapeutic agent. So we also realize that in the religion created by Mestre Irineu, the Daime is one of the key elements in the explaining and ordering of diseases, misfortunes, and healings. More than that, the beverage is the main source of the doctrinal and cosmological exegesis of this religion. The difference related to other ancient Amazon ayahuasca traditions, is that in the daimist cult, the cure involves a process of conversion to a religious community, yet it is a religion that has at its core the experience with a vegetable beverage, seen as a teacher plant that heals. 3. The cure in other ayahuasca religions From the 1940’s other ayahuasca religions will start to appear in the Amazon region. In 1945, the group created by Daniel Pereira de Mattos (Mestre Daniel) also arises in Rio Branco, which will be known as Barquinha. In 1961, the União do Vegetal or UDV10 appears, founded by José Gabriel da Costa, Mestre Gabriel, in Rondônia, Porto Velho. In the UDV the ayahuasca is called Vegetal, not Daime. While the Santo Daime and the Barquinha cult have their formation processes related, the UDV had a somewhat more autonomous development11. There are different explanations for the term Barquinha. At first, it seems to be associated with one of the jobs carried out by the founder of the cult who before arriving in Acre, was a boat pilot. In addition, images and meanings associated to the sea and its sailors are highlighted in this religion. The clothes worn in rituals - called “uniforms” - resemble the sailors’ apparel, many of the psalms sung in ceremonies speak constantly of a “boat”, navigation and the sea. According to Araújo[22], Barquinha comes from the “boat” and is associated with Mestre Daniels’ followers mission, while the sea, in this religion, is associated with the tea itself, which is also called Daime here. Mestre Daniel attended Mestre Irineu’s daimist cult for about ten years. Over time, however, his experiences with the Daime led to the revelation that he had another “religious mission”, which would only be fully accomplished with the creation of a new cult around the use of the Daime[5,22]. This was 10 In 1970, the UDV is notarized by its founder, and its designation becomes Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal - Beneficent Spiritual Center Vegetable Union (CEBUDV). 11On the history and cultural traditions formation that make up the religion of the UDV, I recommend reading an article which I published in the magazine Fieldwork in Religion[21].


gradually being organized, at the beginning at Daniel’s own residence, located in a rural forest area in Rio Branco. The use of the Daime was being introduced gradually. It is said that initially, Mestre Daniel was locally known as a “praying person” sought to take away “quebranto” from children and “panama”12 from hunters, travelers and rubber tappers who passed through that region. Some of these people became the first followers of his cult. The prayers, the Daime, the received hymns, made people increasingly seek for Mestre Daniel to be “cured”. “People were saying that in this part there was a little old man, who prayed very well (...) That’s how his service was approved, and he healed so many people”, says Antonio Geraldo, who was one of the main leaders of this religion[24]. Over time, Mestre Daniel allied the consumption of the Daime to their prayers and blessings. The ceremonies were also becoming more complex. As in the case of the Santo Daime cult, they began to involve the singing of hymns. Just as occurred with Mestre Irineu, Mestre Daniel received his hymns in a process of mystical revelation stimulated by the consumption of the Daime. One of the most remarkable features of the ayahuasca religion founded by Mestre Daniel is its evident approach in practices and beliefs from African-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda. Many entities worshiped in Barquinha groups come from the pantheon of these religions, such as preto-velhos, caboclos, charms of the sea, mermaids, princes or orishas such as Oxun, Iemanjá, Xango, which are revered in some kinds of Umbanda and Candomblé13. Just as in African-Brazilian religions, in Barquinha these 12As demonstrated by several authors, “panama” and “quebranto” consist in beliefs of the Amazon culture quite often used to explain the origin of certain types of diseases or misfortunes. The “panema” refers exactly to hunters’ bad luck in hunting or fishing[7,23], while the “quebranto”, particularly affects infants and children, referring to the breaking of rules that regulate and labels many social relationships, such as neighborhood and kinship. In both cases, it depends on the actions of agents as “healers” or “praying people”, who were characterized by the knowledge of Catholic and other kinds of prayers as well as magical practices, linked to European pagan and indigenous traditions. They used this knowledge to cure a whole range of illnesses typical from the old Brazilian rural world. 13In the Umbanda some of the Orishas originated in Candomblé are worshiped, but the uniqueness of the umbandist religion is another type of entity, such as “preto-velhos” and “caboclos”, which are purified spirits of the dead. “Preto-velhos” are the spirits of former African slaves in Brazil and “caboclos” are the spirits of Native Brazilians. They are not gods as the Orishas. While the latter express their incorporation in the believers only through a kind of gesture and a dance, “preto-velhos” and “caboclos” use the word to communicate with men, providing advice and acting to cure their ailments. Today, there are in Brazil different types of Umbanda and Candomblé, which adopt and merge in varying degrees, these various entities[10].


beings express their presence through a mediunic manifestation. This is understood, in general, as the ability of someone (the medium) to communicate with spiritual beings and feel their presence. The forms taken by this mediunic communication and the ways which spiritual beings manifest themselves may vary. In some Barquinha rituals, there is a dance - called “dance” or “play’ - very similar to the “spins” of the African-Brazilian cults, in which spiritual entities - called “guides” - appear to incorporate the mediums (the “apparatus”) of “the house”14. In this case, the medium expresses his mediumship by incorporating spiritual entities, which is given through a typical way of dancing. However, at other Barquinha ritual moments, the mediunic communication can be manifested in different ways. The “guides” can speak through mediums, through lectures, or specific guidelines given to those who consult them etc., thus transmitting their messages. In all these cases, however the manifestation of these entities implies a certain degree of transformation of the mediums, in particular their physical expression. Therefore, the presence of the entity may be indicated by factors such as changes in the voice tone, the use of certain expressions and a kind of language, a particular facial expression or by the recurrence of certain props and objects - such as certain apparel or the use of tobacco smoked in a pipe. Anyway, these factors indicate that the “apparatus” is to a greater or lesser degree, expressing traits that are not his but his “guide’s”, who manifests itself somehow possessing his body at that moment. The spiritual work highlighted by Mestre Daniel in Barquinha aimed mainly at the mediunic development of the believers. This development of the believers’ mediunic abilities is indeed intrinsically related to the process of conversion to this religion. Though of course, not every Barquinha follower is a medium, there are many cases where the entrance into that cult is explained as the result of an “undeveloped mediumship”. This was in fact the situation of various group leaders from Barquinha. In some cases, the undeveloped mediumship was expressed initially by a disease that could manifest itself through organic imbalances. However, this disease is being explained as of an “spiritual order” and its healing will imply in a whole

14 “Spin”, “guides”, “apparatus”, “house” are all terms used in African-Brazilian cults, especially in Umbanda. The “spin” is a ritual session that is shaped like a circle dance in which spiritual entities come (down) the land and incorporate some of the believers. These can be called “apparatus” or “horses”. In some cases, in Umbanda, the entities who always incorporate the same “apparatus”, are called “guides”. “Home”, as seen, may be synonymous for “terreiro” and “center”.


ordination of the spirituality of the medium. Thus, for example, the disease can mean the need for “indoctrination” of a soul, an entity, or even the “baptism” of pagan entities15. In all these cases it is considered that these beings are still considerably attached to the earthly, material life, and therefore would need spiritual “light”. The work of the medium consists precisely in providing “light” for such entities. In a certain way, the disease is seen as a sign that the patient is an undeveloped medium, whom different types of spirits attempt to communicate with. The absence of specific codes for the performance of this medium communication with the entities is what can generate the disease. In this sense, the cure consists in training, organization and regularization of the relations between the medium and its entities (his “guides”). As shown by several authors[11], this way of explaining the disease and its cure is typical of the umbandist universe. Let’s take the example of Mrs. Francisca Gabriel who is now a group leader in Barquinha, Rio Branco. As I reported in an interview, Francisca Gabriel met Mestre Daniel and his cult in 1957, having sought them due to a disease that afflicted her at the time. Although Francisca Gabriel has not provided us with details about this disease, she ensured that on that occasion, “she had already been undeceived by the doctors”. According to her, Mestre Daniel prescribed her a treatment which involved the combined use of “herbal” and “pharmacy medicines”. These directions were the result of “revelations” received by Mestre Daniel’s sessions with the Daime. Francisca Gabriel said, moreover, that her main medicine at that time was the Daime. She tells Mestre Daniel recommended her small daily doses of Daime - approximately three teaspoons - which she took for several months. “He ensured that I was going to be good, but it would take time. So, at first, he gave me just a little Daime. It was a small dose of medicine”. The amount of Daime given to Francisca Gabriel increased as her health improved. At the same time, the change in the dose of Daime seemed to relate to the deepening of her “spiritual work”. As she 15 The idea of “baptism of pagan entities” implies in the conception that some beings would be on a lower spiritual level and therefore in order to “evolve spiritually” would need to be “indoctrinated”. This “indoctrination” implies in a series of changes in the behavior of the entity and its way of manifesting when incorporated to its “apparatus”. Many times, the manifestations linked to the use of material objects - such as tobacco smoking or the consumption of alcoholic beverages such as cachaça - as well as the recurrence of ritual practices implicating in the deaths of animals are seen as expressions of little evolution. This kind of notion is present in a greater or lesser degree, in some forms of Umbanda, and indicates a great influence in the latter, of kardecism concepts.


explained, “When I started to feel stronger, Mestre Daniel started to give me more Daime, so I could develop my “preparo”, knowing the entities that I had to work with”. The notion of “prepare” in this Barquinha universe refers to the particular process of mediunic development which certain believers (mediums) should go through. It is the “prepare” that allows the organization and regularization of relations between a medium and his “guides”, and its duration may even be long. It is possible to notice in this short statement, similarities between the processes of healing experienced by the followers of Barquinha and the Santo Daime of Mestre Irineu. Thus, in both cases we find that the Daime beverage has an important role in treating the disease, providing a remedy meaning, or also functioning as an oracle, i.e. as a means of revealing the drugs and procedures necessary for the healing. However, in Barquinha the Daime importance as a therapeutic agent is qualified by many other factors and in particular by the concept of mediumship. As seen, it is the development and regulation of the mediunic ability of the medium that in many cases, can lead to cure a disease. In this regard, it is important to clarify that, in Barquinha the development of mediumship implies in a healing process for both the medium and the spiritual entities which he works with. In order to regularize their mediunic abilities through a series of guidelines, procedures and ritual requirements (the “preparo”), the medium also does “charity work” for entities which need to evolve spiritually. His mediunic enhancement leads to the spiritual “indoctrination” of these entities. As explained by a leader of another Barquinha group, Mr. Antonio Geraldo. “(...) Sometimes a person with encosto showed up (..) Encosto16 is like this, one feels the symptoms of a disease. Then the person goes to medical-examination, takes medication, spends money here and there and nothing. Until she comes to a center and finds out ... Sometimes it is a ghost of a relative, someone who died of an illness and is there, leaning (...) Because many times the person disembodies but finds no light, he or she is in the darkness and then keeps trying to grab those who are in this world (...) It can also be a being who needs indoctrination accompanying that person... They are beings who are asking for help, charity”.

16The notion of “encosto” comes from Umbanda and refers to the action provoked by a spirit of a dead person (a “ghost”) in a person’s life, who was usually bonded to the first. This action always produces negative effects, among them a possible disease. In Portuguese it can mean support (“lean on someone”) or touch (“touching someone”) and also having a pejorative sense as “being dependent on or economically exploit someone”.


However, once these entities are “indoctrinated” they can also start healing those who need and seek their assistance through mediums. As a matter of fact, the therapeutic action of these entities is actually what underlies much of the set of practices and conceptions of Barquinha, similar to what occurs in the Umbanda religion. As such, the cult of Barquinha is characterized by a set of rituals in which certain spiritual entities, incorporated in the mediums, provide guidance and advice to the believers, focusing mainly on issues related to diseases and their cures. These rituals are “charity works”, a designation that also comes from Umbanda. In them, the entities serve all who seek for them during private appointments. They speak through the bodies of mediums, and usually on these occasions prescribe, for those who are sick, teas, herbal baths, natural compresses, besides prescribing prayers, spiritual guidance and procedures. An essential element of these appointments provided by the entities is the “spiritual pass”. Identically to what happens in Umbanda, the mediums, now owned by the entity, passes their hands all over the body of the sufferer or unfortunate, many times also smoking him or her with his pipe or cigar. The intent is to pass good vibrations to the patient, eliminating the bad fluids that may be impregnating his or her body and spirit. Thus, the entity gives the pass and usually finishes the appointment. Whereas in the Santo Daime religion organized by Mestre Irineu, the concept of mediumship is not set as an important element in defining the relationship between the believers and spiritual beings. The idea that some believers would have special attributes is not highlighted, which would enable them to communicate more closely with spiritual entities. The Daime assumes then, a key role in establishing the contact between the believers and the spiritual world. It is the sacred beverage, “plant-spirit” and “teacher plant” which allows the daimists during their ceremonies, to deeper understand the meanings of their hymns, doctrine as well as “elevating themselves” to the “astral”. In the cult founded by Mestre Irineu, the Daime also inspires the revelation of hymns. While in Barquinha hymns are understood primarily as the result of a mediunic process. The spiritual entities are the ones who broadcast the lyrics and melodies of these songs to mediums. Therefore, compared to the Barquinha cult, in the religion created by Mestre Irineu, the Daime also assumes a much more central role with regard to the elaboration of concepts about diseases and their cures. The very idea of Daime as a remedy or as a revelation channel of the disease and its treatment is much stronger there than in the universe of Barquinha. Even because as seen in Barquinha, there are other major players in the disease solution process. The development of mediumship, the therapeutic


action of spiritual entities, and the extensive recurrence of herbal knowledge, expressed in prescriptions provided by these entities when incorporated in mediums compete with the Daime, attenuating its importance as a therapeutic agent. 4. Final remarks A first aspect that we wish to emphasize here is that the ayahuasca cults are consistent with a whole way of Brazilian religiosity closely related to the matter of curing diseases. As mentioned, the desire to solve diseases is a major reason for conversion into various religions developed in Brazil, from the popular Catholicism to the current Pentecostal sects, as well as in African-Brazilian cults, in the Kardecism, and also in typical practices of certain regions, such as the caboclo Amazonian shamanism. That even makes the theme of Brazilian religions bound to the study of “religious medicines”, a term used by different authors to refer to the set of concepts and practices, present in these cults, aiming at the relief and explanation of diseases and several problems related to those[25]. In this discussion, a point highlighted by some authors[11,26] is the existence of an ambiguity in the relations that these religious medicines establish with the scientific medicine, which is the official one. So we see that Montero[11] detects this ambiguity in the umbandist healing practice, which is understood by her as a popular religious medicine. For the fact that they are in a subaltern and peripheral position, the therapeutic practices of Umbanda cannot ignore the realm of scientific medicine and therefore absorb many of its elements. Conversely, they subvert the biomedical logic when resignifying notions of the latter. They end up, in fact, contesting their subordinate position when asserting the religious superiority of their explanation opposite to the biomedical explanation on the disease. That same ambiguous process can be noticed in the ayahuasca religions commented here. Thereby, it can be observed that the process of curing or treating diseases experienced in both Santo Daime and Barquinha cults imply in the frequent recurrence of expressions, characters (doctors, nurses etc.), tools, procedures and concepts of the scientific medicine. At the same time, the elements and the logic of biomedicine, since entering the universe of these religions are submitted to its cosmological order. The physical discomfort turns into “mediunic” which needs to be developed, or in an “encosto” which has to be taken away from the “patient” and in an “ordeal” required for a particular process of religious conversion. Thereby, as a Barquinha group leader quoted in this article, “it ends up that the disease wasn’t actually a disease”. Furthermore, therapies developed in these


ayahuasca religions, from the perspective of their believers, process and solve problems and diseases that the scientific medicine is unable to cure. As seen in the testimonials exposed, many come to these cults “undeceived” by the doctors or after having undergone various medical treatments without obtaining relief from their woes, which will only occur with the acceptance of new religious therapeutic practices. A notion that expresses this ambiguous relationship between ayahuasca religions and biomedical logic is the one of the “remedy”. We notice that the idea of remedy appears frequently in testimonials of these religions followers, to support explanations about treatments for varied diseases and misfortunes. It is very much associated with the Daime - the beverage. Thus in both Santo Daime and Barquinha, the Daime is seen as a remedy, i.e. a drug that can treat and heal an organic disease. Various statements, quoted here, highlight that idea. Many of these believers, as verified, say that drinking the Daime cured them or that the Daime was their main remedy. Continuing this kind of speech, also in many of these statements as seen, the use of the Daime remedy is similar to the use of modern official medicines. In this sense, the followers of these cults assert they have often used the Daime, similarly to the medicines prescribed by doctors, in “low doses”, and both Mestre Irineu as Mestre Daniel could decide, in accordance with the case, whether to prescribe the use of the Daime or the use of “pharmacy medicines”. However, a more thorough analysis of these reports shows that the Daime is a remedy for such believes in a very different fashion from the drugs used by the scientific medicine. Therefore, as already seen, it is said, for example, that Mestre Irineu often “saw” through the Daime which “pharmacy medicines” patients should consume. The Daime emerges then as a remedy of quite different characteristics from the official medicine drugs. It is a drug-oracle that reveals, magically, the existence of a disease, as well as how to cure it, discovering and pointing out the procedures and medications needed for each case. It teaches, explains, shows, enlights; in conclusion the Daime relates to the one who consumes it. Both establish a relationship of communication. It is, after all, a remedy that is a “plant-spirit” with “power”, “light” and “knowledge”. That is why, for the believers of these cults, it can heal better than the scientific medicine drugs. Yet on the relation between religious and scientific medicine drugs, it is worth remembering that after the end of slavery and the inauguration of the Republican regime in Brazil, a new penal code would also be established in this country in 1890. Where the illegal practice of medicine, low spiritism, magic and shamanism are strictly prohibited


institutionalizing the repression of these activities and classifying them, generally, as quackery[27]17. This would directly affect the practices of African-Brazilian cults early in their formation. It is the case of Umbanda which as shown by several authors [9,11,27], suffered severe persecution at the time of its appearance, even in the twenties of the last century, when several of its practices involved healing and phytotherapy issues, labeled as “low spiritism”, “faith healing” and “quackery”. The ayahuasca religions were not immune to the impact of the new Penal Code. Thus, especially in the period within the thirties and the fifties, any occasional persecution and stigma suffered by Santo Daime and Barquinha cults in Rio Branco, were related to the association between use of the Daime and “faith healing” or “quackery” activities. In the case of Barquinha mainly, not just the use of the Daime, but the recurrence to a variety of other plants for medicinal purposes aggravated the identification of the cult as “faith healing”. The evident approach of Barquinha with African-Brazilian cults such as Umbanda, on the other hand stimulated the labeling of its rituals as “low spiritism” or “voodoo”. As argued by authors such as Maggie[27] and Negrão[9], among others, certain religions such as the African-Brazilian, were stigmatized as involving the presence of a set of common therapeutic practices whose struggle was of interest for the consolidation of an official scientific medicine. It is also worth mentioning that these practices started to be seen as signs of a “delayed” mentality and as an obstacle to the consolidation of a more “white”, “rational” and “modern” new Brazilian society18. Although these authors’ analyses are restricted to the African-Brazilian cults, we can extend it to the ayahuasca religions, which arise more or less at the same time as Umbanda, despite being in another region of the country19.

17Article 157 of the Penal Code established penalties for those who practiced the “spiritualism, magic spells and their charms (...) to arouse feelings of hate or love, inculcate cures for curable or incurable diseases, and finally to dazzle and overwhelm the public credulity”. The penalty was 1-6 months in a prison cell[27]. 18That is the conclusion of Renato Ortiz on the process that led to the formation of Umbanda and its adoption of aspects of the Kardecism which, according to the author, would be more appropriate to the progress aspirations of this emerging Brazilian society of the first decades of the twentieth century[28]. 19I developed this thought more thoroughly in another work[29]. On the analogy between the processes of repression of the African-Brazilian and ayahuasca cults, after the promulgation of the 1890 Criminal Code, see also article by Edward MacRae[30].


Also, the União do Vegetal, which appears in a later period, the sixties, in Porto Velho, Rondônia, may be related at least in part, to the process by which certain popular religious practices are being suppressed when categorized as “faith healing” and both are associated to a delayed mentality. In a way, maybe we can verify in this ayahuasca religion when compared to the other two commented here, a major effort regarding a distance from a set of therapeutic practices, understood as “quackery”. This is evidenced both in some ritual practices of the UDV, as in attitudes and assumptions of its followers, and especially in the pronouncements of its leaders as well as texts and documents20 prepared by them and eventually addressed to an outside audience. As I mentioned in an earlier work[21], this attitude is largely explained due to the existence of affection to a science speech in the UDV21. Although in the Brazilian Penal Code, the current ban on illegal medical practice, the low spiritism, magic and shamanism remains, it is noteworthy that the social image of the religious cults previously associated to these practices, e.g. the African-Brazilian ones, changed significantly. One aspect that points to this change is a greater membership of people from middle and upper classes to Umbanda and Candomblé, from the seventies. Negrão, for example, examined this process also showing how this period marks a growth of Umbanda in Brazil, in terms of numbers of believers and religious communities, also expressing a more positive impact of this religion and its practices in the national press[9]. 20In the first official UDV publication, the book Hoasca - Fundamentos e Objetivos[31] establishes a complete distinction between body and spiritual healings, emphasizing that this institution is characterized by the use of the Vegetable only for spiritual healing not to cure the material, i.e. the “body”. It is explicitly stated that the UDV does not proclaim “the curative properties of the tea” and “does not practice or spread faith healing actions”[31]. However, as shown in some investigations[5], the UDV relation with healing practices connected to a phytotherapic knowledge is ambiguous. On the one hand, this kind of scientistic speech marks a distance from these practices, on the other hand, the presence of a number of elements in this cult indicates continuity with the logic that reigned the recurrence to those practices. 21This is a scientificity ideal, very similar to the one which according to Renato Ortiz[28] guided the consolidation and dissemination of the Kardecism in Brazil. In this, according to Ortiz, concepts such as “science”, “evolution” of a “more conscious mediumship”, as well as less material and spell - e.g. the use of herbs for healing, or the artifacts, alcoholic beverages or tobacco by spiritual entities who were demonstrating - practices fulfilled the role of signaling a link to this ideal of scientificity[28,32].


The case of the ayahuasca religions is a little different, since its emergence, expansion and growth are given after cults such as Umbanda. Moreover, its spread to other regions of Brazil besides the Amazon, involves new aspects. Among these, the association of religion with the drug issue in the contemporary society is highlighted. The expansion of these ayahuasca religions and their greater visibility in the Brazilian society, do not coincide with the outline of a positive social image of them. Instead, when they become more visible, being no longer restricted to the Amazon region, they begin to be analyzed by the Brazilian media in an extremely negative way. However, despite this fact, as in the case of the African-Brazilian cults, the spread of the ayahuasca religions also imply in a change of their believers’ sociocultural profile. When they reach the South and Southeast regions of the country, they start being embraced by individuals from higher social classes who express a very different lifestyle from those believers connected to the origin of these religions. Not all ayahuasca religions are involved with this movement of expansion and diversification of the profile of its followers. The UDV and CEFLURIS (Centro Eclético da Fluente Luz Universal Raimundo Irineu Serra), which is a division of the cult of Mestre Irineu’s Santo Daime that emerged in Rio Branco, Acre, in 197822, are the most related to this movement. Both the UDV and CEFLURIS have today groups in several other countries. The CEFLURIS is present in countries such as Argentina, United States, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, England, Wales, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Germany23. The UDV has followers in the United States and Spain. The fact that the ayahuasca cults embrace today believers of different social strata brings new elements to the question on relations between subaltern religious therapeutic practices and an official and hegemonic scientific medicine. In this regard, we consider important to highlight that the marginalization of some of the practices of these cults is sustained despite the

22The CEFLURIS was created by Sebastião Mota de Melo, who was known by his followers as “Padrinho Sebastião” and died in 1990. Sebastião Mota de Melo was born in Amazonas state and was part of the group created and led by Mestre Irineu. With his decease, he appeared as one of his possible successors. However, after a series of conflicts and disputes concerning the successor of Mestre Irineu in the group originally created, Sebastião Mota de Melo breaks with them and creates his own Daime center in Rio Branco. Today CEFLURIS is run by his sons. 23Alberto Groisman[33] asserts that by 1996 there were twenty-eight groups associated with CEFLURIS in Europe and around five hundred people between followers and occasional attendees of their rituals.


change in the socioeconomic profile of their believers. This occurs due to different factors. In particular, in contemporary complex societies we can identify a great heterogeneity of behavioral patterns, not only determined by economic conditions, which have a larger or smaller acceptance, according to different situations and historical moments. Regarding the recurrence of therapeutic activities it is possible to identify those generally called alternative therapies in relation to biomedicine. The recurrence of these alternative therapeutic approaches occurs relatively frequently in these ayahuasca religion groups that express an expansion and diversification motion of their socio-cultural followers. Rose[34], for example, studied a group linked to CEFLURIS located in Minas Gerais which has as one of its peculiarities, a strong presence of believers in the health and medicine area who also work with this kind of therapy. The author showed that an intersection between the uses and meanings of these alternative therapies and the daimist spiritual therapies occurs. As mentioned by other authors, nevertheless, the great difference between official medical practices and magic-religious medicines is that the latter offer principles and integrating responses to the misfortunes and illnesses experienced by the subjects, making them more meaningful and bearable. The religious medicine expresses a holistic view of the disease. Instead, the official medicine therapies act from a logic of specialization that separates, divides and classifies the sick body, understood as just a biological entity[12,35]. Finally, it is important to emphasize that the religious medicine expressed through the cults discussed in this article is deeply marked by the use of the psychoactive beverage called Daime or Vegetal in the different groups. As we can see by what has been stated here, for the believers of these cults the referred beverage ranges through a variety of meanings that infer and does not remit necessarily to its psychoactive or pharmacological characteristics. However, mainly from the expansion process of these religions, they are now identified, in the more comprehensive society, to the use of a drug or hallucinogen. At this point it is worth clarifying that in Brazil, the use of the ayahuasca has been under threat of a legal ban in several occasions. In 1985, it was even suspended, and the ayahuasca was on a list of psychotropic substances prohibited for a period of almost one year. In 1987, however, after a long survey conducted by a team of specialists from different scientific areas, the use of the beverage was liberated again, but only for religious and ritual purposes. The last document approved by the Brazilian government on this issue in January 2010 (Resolution No 01, January 2010/CONAD)24, was 24This resolution was published in the Diário Oficial da União (Federal Official Gazette), No. 17 from January 26, 2010, page 58.


prepared by CONAD (Conselho Nacional de Políticas sobre Drogas - National Drug Council)25. The preparation of the document resulted from discussions and assessments developed by a working group composed of experts on the subject, especially in biomedicine but also in humanities and counted also with the participation of representatives of major groups of these religions. The CONAD document legally sanctions the religious use of the beverage, based on the principle that assures the right to free exercise any cult or faith, established in the Brazilian constitution. Furthermore, the document contains a set of principles that constitute in recommendations for the appropriate use of the beverage, which should be followed by all ayahuasca cults. This document regulates the use of the ayahuasca in Brazil. Concerning the therapeutic use of the ayahuasca, providing continuity to a logic characterized by these cults, the CONAD document establishes that first, the so-called healing activities practiced in these cults consist of an “act of faith”, with a strict religious sense, a right therefore guaranteed by the Brazilian constitution, and on which the state cannot intervene. In this aspect the rules of CONAD continues the logic characterized by the ayahuasca cults, remembering that it was also elaborated from the considerations of the representatives of these cults’ perspective. Secondly, the CONAD regulation determines that the use of the ayahuasca for therapeutic purposes other than those strictly religious aiming at health or cure, are not allowed. The document clarifies that the use of the ayahuasca for this other purpose can only be made under confirmation of scientific research undertaken at academic institutions. It is true that the latest Brazilian government regulations on the use of the ayahuasca partly continue the arguments of the ayahuasca cult believers, by admitting that the therapeutic practices exercised in their contexts have a strictly religious meaning. However, the logic and mindset that support these practices differ considerably from the fundamentals that guide governmental decisions and opinions. As we tried to show throughout this article, the therapeutic activities of these cults merge different conceptions and practices, implying both in a phytotherapic experimentalism as in spiritual explanations

25CONAD is the regulatory agency of the Sistema Nacional de Políticas Públicas sobre Drogas (National System of Public Policies on Drugs) - SISNAD - which is in charge of the drugs policy in Brazil. Both were created in 1998 to replace other agencies with a similar function. The CONAD is linked to the Presidential Institutional Security Office and consists of members who participate in government institutions as well as NGOs. Its function is to provide guidance, advice and recommendations on the drugs subject


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Documents

2. The notion of cure in the Brazilian ayahuasca religions Rafael.pdf · Cure in the Brazilian ayahuasca religions 25 of organized, urban, non-indigenous, religions based on its consumption,